Today’s guests:

A decade ago, a mysterious pneumonia-like illness caught everyone off guard. It killed nearly 800 people and sickened thousands. Scientists later named it Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome or SARS. The outbreak threw the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s epidemiologists into emergency mode. The agency has never been exactly the same since. Dr. Scott Powell joins us now to discuss how that epidemic changed the way the CDC works.

Budgets have winners and losers. Tight budgets can exacerbate the margin between the two, especially in the Defense Department. Analyst Jim McAleese has looked exhaustively at details of the Obama administration’s 2014 defense budget request. He joins us now with his thoughts on the winners and losers.

From Our Reporters

Like everything else in government, science and technology programs in the Defense Department are being sliced by sequestration. And as Federal News Radio’s Jared Serbureports, DoD officials say the effects are already being felt across the research and development spectrum.

The Strategic Sourcing Leadership Council is proposing how and where to expand the Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative. Some suggestions to the Office of Federal Procurement Policy deal with new contracts or expansions of existing blanket- purchase agreements. But not all. Joe Jordan, administrator of OFPP, tells Federal News Radio executive editor Jason Miller the definition of strategic sourcing is broader than many think.